Overview

The Consumer Privacy Project (CPP) engages in research, policy work, and tool-building in an effort to enhance privacy online. The Disclosure by Design project, for instance, featured in the New York Times and New York Times Magazine, seeks to apply human-computer interaction research and experimentation to consumer problems. Another example is Privicons.org—an international collaboration that seeks to reduce the incidence of email privacy violations through a set of “washing instructions for email.” CPP helped design a set of icons and a browser plug-in for people to express how they want their emails to be used by others.

CPP also recently launched WhatApp.org, a review website for the privacy, security, and openness of online and mobile apps. Thirty experts rate and review hundreds of apps added by a growing volume of users. WhatApp.org has been covered by the Associated Press, Forbes, SmartMoney, the San Francisco Chronicle, and many other news outlets and blogs. Over two thousand websites link to it, including for a time the California Office of Privacy Projection.

CPP regularly engages in policy discussions around consumer privacy with companies and state and local governments. Occasionally, CPP helps others participate in agency or other legal proceedings. For instance, CPP field an amicus brief in the 9th Circuit on behalf of David Clark and David Reed—two of the primary architects of the Internet—in defense of email privacy. Finally, CPP brings in speakers from all over the world, including then EC Commissioner Meglena Kuneva and then FTC Commissioner Pamela Jones Harbour.